


a family's choice

by ayebydan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 10:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12455208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayebydan/pseuds/ayebydan
Summary: His wife is drying and pleads with Barty to allow her to save their son. He is adamant that Junior did wrong and he has a duty to keep his son in prison.





	a family's choice

Barty stares at his wife and tries to make sense of the words coming out of her mouth, from the flushed lips wet with the tears streaming steadily down her face as, as her wrinkled and too dry hands grasp at his own. 

"He is our _son_. He was just a _boy_."

"Neville Longbottom was just a boy." Barty states heavily, his mind already drifting back to the headlines and the horrendous details that Skeeter woman had gleefully reported to the world. "He has no parents now to try and save him and that is because of our Junior."

 

Wet lips press together, harden, and a single tear drips off the edge and drips onto her shirt. Barty stares as the wet patch turns candyfloss pink to a darker stain and tries to suppress his emotions. 

"I'm not long for this world. You know that. This is my last wish. My only wish to my husband."

"You can't ask me to do this!" Barty says loudly, firmly pulling free of his wife's hold and pacing the room. "Not this! I dedicated my life to fighting this war. This _evil_. I was there at the beginning when people doubted the man was even a danger. I was there...I was there so much I never saw it infect our son and now he has murdered, raped and driven people insane. And you want me to give him a free pass?"

"It won't be like that. He's been inside. He won't be the same. Ten days in Azkaban or ten years....it is all the same. You know that." She pleads, moving to the sofa when standing gets too hard. It makes her look all the more vulnerable and Barty cannot look at her. He cannot look at the home around them. He cannot look at the life they were supposed to lead for decades more with a decent son beside them. 

 

"No. Do not ask this of me."

 

*

Her fingernails don't grow anymore and her skin is more like a paper sheet over veins and what is left of muscle. The sound of the parchment on the desk echoes around his mind as she sits in the seat on the other side of his desk and stares at him.

"Two months if I am lucky Barty. Please. Think about it. You don't have to give him a life. Just give him his home. I'm already in agony. I already feel very little joy. I would endure it for him."

 

*

Junior dominates his every move in life. He has been shifted from department to department since Junior's imprisonment. His wife's pale blue eyes peer out from hollow cheeks with hope and yet despair every time he goes home. He researches things. He talks to his house elf. He doesn't sleep and he drinks too damn much.

 

He decides Junior's life will be hell anyway and his wife is far more important.

 

*

 

It is not hard to arrange the visit. He still has that much pull at least and people want answers and hope Barty will find them on the island. If Junior talks he will give them and if not he will make something up. It breaks his heart to watch his wife prepare happily for death. He feels sick to his stomach has he gently holds her frail hand in his when at the Healers and talks of how they have decided to take each day as it comes and withdraw treatment to enjoy their time as best they can without side effects. 

Barty spends most of the conversation with the house elf sipping whiskey and feeling like a hypocrite. He's never been a big one for creature rights and yet this small shy creature who nods with wide eyes and bounces as she promises to keep it a secret and control Junior is their only hope for the future. If she fails his life will fall apart and his wife's name will be ruined right along with the rest of them. 

*

 

The three weeks before they are due to go to Azkaban his wife is like a whole new woman. She laughs more. Smiles more. Sleeps less. She sends Barty to the bank to change money into muggle currency and then makes him Apparate to odd places and get 'takeaway food' from around the world. She is at peace and that is what settles Barty when it comes down to it.

That is what gives him the strength to take her onto the boat in a host of veils and cloaks. 

That is what allows him to lie.

That is what allows him to smiles and nod and take his vile son back off the island held close to his chest and stop himself from throwing his greatest disappointment to the bottom of the North Sea.


End file.
